Itex's Secret
by Mocha Iggy's Last Name Here
Summary: The flock left Max at the School. But one day Jeb comes back for her, and tells her the flock ran away from him. Why did the flock run? What is Jeb's real self? Is the Itex hiding something from there workers? And, what is subject 45 all about?
1. Chapter 1

I swung my hand at the bulking Eraser. Of course, this was a new version. It dodged my pathetic attempt and grabbed me.

"Let go of me, right NOW, you bastard!" I screamed angrily. He kept walking (or she, you never know) until he hit the cage room. He stuffed me in my size medium cage and walked out, slamming the door behind him.

Now I was alone. The cages next to me were empty, of course. Envy swept through my body like a tornado. Those betrayers. They escaped with Jeb and left me here to rot. I was going to get out of here, no matter what it takes. I am not going to die at age eleven in a hellhole where I was tested on for a so-called 'better cause'.

I tried to close my eyes, when a whitecoat walked in. He opened the cage and took me out, swinging me over his shoulder like I was a sack.

"Ugh! Let go of me!" I screeched, hitting his back.

"No, Max." he dropped me, but still held on to my shoulders. Then I got a good look at his face, and I gasped. "I'm here to rescue you." Jeb said.

"Jeb!" I gasped.

"The flock ran away from me, don't know why. I forgot about you when we escaped. I'm sorry, please forgive me."

"Jeb…" I said again. I was in a daze. "Gone?"

He understood what I meant to say. "Yes, Max, they are gone. But I can rescue you. You can live with me and your mom and your sister."

"Mom? Sister?" I asked, still in a daze.

"Yes, Ella and Valencia (Dr. Martinez's first name incase you didn't know). She is a doctor, she makes good money and we could live a normal life."

I considered the possibilities. Why did the flock run away? Did Jeb do something bad? What if I went with him and ran away, to go find the flock?

"O- okay." I said. I had chosen my decision and I would stick with it.

Jeb smiled. "Okay, let's go."

We walked across the hall. When we got out, I looked at the sky. It was nighttime. Perfect. But first, I needed some answers.

"Why did they run, Jeb?" I asked in a sweet voice.

He hesitated. "I don't know."

EARLIER THAT MORNING WITH THE FLOCK

"Jesus! Iggy!" Fang yelled. Iggy came running into the room.

"Look at this! All of these papers…" Fang dug through a stack of papers he had found in Jeb's room. "Do you know about this?" He held a paper up to his face.

"I can't see, idiot." Iggy said.

"Oh. Right." He blushed, happy Iggy didn't see. "It says; ITEX. Twenty experiments have been abandoned at the Institute. Please take and give to the Itex branch in Germany, and dispose of them immediately. Experiments seven through eleven have escaped, and only one avian hybrid, experiment six, is left. Destroy all experiments except for Erasers. Send them out to destroy avian hybrids." Fang read it aloud.

"Are they talking about us?" Iggy asked.

"I think so. And Max." Fang felt a wave of guilt. He missed Max. Iggy looked sad at the name also, and Fang regretted bringing it up.

"Okay. Any more?"

Fang dug through some more.

"Oh my go." He said, reading a paper.

"What?"

"This paper… It says that they have…" Fang stopped.

"What, Fang?" Iggy said angrily.

"Max had been programmed to find us and kill us. The operation for it was yesterday, and they are sending her out today."


	2. Chapter 2

STILL EARLIER WITH THE FLOCK

Iggy was silent. "What?"

"She has a chip in her that is programmed to kill us." Fang replied. He read aloud the paper that said so.

"Shit." Iggy said. Just then Gazzy and Nudge who was carrying Angel walked in.

"What's going on?"

Fang explained everything.

"Do you think Jeb knows about it?" Gazzy asked.

"Yeah, it was in his room."

"We should run." Iggy said.

"Huh?" Fang asked, confused.

"We should run." He repeated. "What if Jeb is keeping us up in these mountains, waiting for Max to come and kill us? We can't trust him."

"You're right." Fang agreed. "Where's Jeb right now?"

"Out in the forest, looking for food." Nudge said.

"Perfect!" Fang said with a smile. "Let's go, right now!"

The flock ran down the steps and ran out the door.

"Up and away!" Nudge yelled, and everyone was flying over the forest tops.

MAX POV

I hesitated. Should I take off now, or wait when he's in the car so I get a head start?

"Let's go." Jeb said, and motioned to his car. I got in the front seat, and he started diving. I started to silently count to thirty. At thirty, I would take off and search for the flock. I would forgive them for leaving me behind, and we could live a better life.

Twenty-nine, thirty.

I jumped up, ripping the seat belt with me. Jeb squealed, which I laughed at, and I took off silently into the night.

Where to go, where to go…

Just then I remembered. Before the flock left, Jeb had explained to us that he would take us up to a house in the mountains. I had a clear picture of it in my mind. I remembered him showing it to us on a computer. The flock couldn't have gotten that far from I, so maybe I should start there.

I angled right, having an instinct that it was that way.

Hours past. It got colder and colder. Soon it was morning, and I desperately hoped it wasn't too far away from here.

Then I saw it. A small house that looked like an 'E' turned on it's side. I smiled, and bulleted down to it.

I landed on the porch. It creaked under my light weight, so obviously it was really old. I couldn't way more than forty pounds. I looked around, hoping to get a glimpse of the flock.

And there it was. Five specks miles away (with my raptor vision I could see them easily) were spotted against the sky. I gleamed, and took off. I beat my wings as fast as I could, looking for every wind current to fly through. They got closer and closer.

"Guys!" I called. They were less than a mile away from me now. Fang turned around, followed by Iggy, Nudge, Gazzy and Angel. I flew faster than I ever have before, and I was gliding next to them. "Guys! Oh my god, I missed you!"

Fang angled to the opposite of me. I glided towards them.

"Fang? What's wrong?"

"Go away." He whispered.

"Fang, it's me! Max!" I said.

"Go away." He said louder.

"But-"

"GO AWAY!" He yelled, and they all flew away from me.

"Okay, wait, wait, wait. What the hell is going on?"

"You idiot!" Iggy yelled. "You think we don't know?"

"What?" I asked, ready to start crying.

"You know! Don't play dumb with us!"

"Guys, I seriously don't know what you are talking about."

"God, you are dumb! You just came to kill us like the School ordered you to do!"

"What are you talking about?" I demanded.

Iggy hesitated. "Fang, she really might not know. The School didn't tell us a lot of things and they might of not told her-"

Fan shut his mouth for a while. We kept gliding.

"The School programmed you to kill us." He said.

BEEP BEEP.

"What was that?" Nudge asked.

My vision blurred and unblurred.

"Target acquired." I said unwillingly.


	3. Chapter 3

What was going on?

"Kill." I said. For a second I felt the urge to attack all of them. "No, wait, guys- Kill" I tried to say 'it's not me' but my voice broke off into a monotone.

"Everyone, go!" Fang ordered.

I swung a punch at Fang.

"Eek! Fang!" I squealed. I hit him again, unwillingly. Holly crap, they did program me to kill! Shoot, what was I going to do?

Fang only flinched at my punch. "Max, go away before you hurt us!"

"Can't!" I made out before I started saying things like 'kill' and 'destroy'.

FANG POV

I remembered reading more papers. I tried to wrack my brain to remember what it said to deactivate it…

Ah hah! I thought. I tucked in my wings so I would drop a couple feet, and Max's foot was in front of me. I took off the sneaker. She tried to kick me, but I dodged it. There was a small chip attached to her ankle, with a small button.

I pressed it.

BEEP BEEP. It rang again.

I flew back up to her so we were face to face.

"You okay?" I asked.

"I- I think so." She replied.

"Good." I whistled, and the flock came back like dog.

MAX POV

That was what Fang meant about me killing them. I sighed in relief, now that Fang managed to stop it. We were silent, until I was curious about where we were going in the first place.

"Where are we going?" I asked.

"Well, originally? We were running from you. Now? I don't know. Wait, actually…" Fang took off a backpack he had managed to carry even with wings. He opened it up and handed me an old binder.

"What's this?" I asked.

"We found 'em in Jeb's room. I didn't go through all of them, but I took as much as I could. You wanna' go through it?"

"Okay. Can we land somewhere?" I asked, and took the binder.

"Okay." We all tucked our wings in and landed on different branches of trees.

I opened it. The pockets were crammed with papers that all said ITEX or INSTITUTE. I grabbed the first stack.

The first paper read:

INSITUTE, NEW YORK

FOR RANK TEN AND HIGHER ONLY

Collect all Rank Nine and lower personnel to the Institute, Germany. Rank Ten: Subject 45 has escaped. DO NOT TELL ANYONE. This could kill all humanity as we know it. Do NOT repeat do NOT send any subjects to capture Subject 45. It grows with every kill.

When me and Fang finished reading, we looked up just in time to see a hoard of Erasers flying our way.


	4. Chapter 4

"Erasers!" I yelled. I huddled the younger kids together and his them under a thick branch, and me, Iggy and Fang rushed up to attack.

Half of them were laughing evilly. The other half? They nearly fell out of the air from laughter. There was about fifty of them, and I had lost a lot of my hope, if not all.

We all flew up to them. I jumped on ones back and slammed my hands on it's ears. It dropped from the sky, and I heard a thump coming from bellow.

Fang took on three at once. He had gotten in the middle of three that were charging at him. He flew up at the last second so that they hit their heads together, and he kicked all of them. They dropped down like stones.

Iggy seemed to manage pretty well, being blind and all. He had taken down one by punching.

I through a kick at ones stomach. These ones seemed to be weaker than the ones at the School. Had they sent out defects or something? That was good, if it was true. I repeatedly attacked, and another wave came.

"This is useless!" Fang yelled. It went from fifty to a hundred, maybe even more. "Let's blow this joint!"

"Speaking of blowing," Iggy said, "take this!"

He took out what seemed to be a bomb from his pocket and threw it at them. It blew up with a BANG, and I heard laughter from bellow. Probably Gazzy.

Then it was down to only ten. Where he learned to make bombs? I really, truly don't know.

We took them down easily.

"Max! Help!"

I turned to the frightened scream. Erasers had taken the younger ones! Nudge was squealing and crying, the same with Gazzy and Angel.

"Fang! You get Gazzy! Iggy, you go for Nudge!" I left myself with Angel. We all flew after them. But the Erasers were faster than us, despite the fact they were much weaker. We flew and flew, until three more came out with guns.

"Drop!" I said, and everyone instinctively obeyed and we tucked our wings in. We all dropped, down into the forest. My eyes were closed.

BANG!

I hadn't even realized I was that close to the ground. I opened my eyes, and I was face first in the dirt. I swore a couple times under my breath, and got up. Fang and Iggy had managed to land nicely.

It took a second to realize a couple things:

I broke an arm from the fall

Erasers took the younger kids

Iggy had a hole on his shoulder from a gun

I walked over to Iggy, who was silently crying. I wiped some of the blood off him

with the sleeve of my shirt. The bullet had barely pierced his skin, so I gently took it out. Iggy bit his lip.

"Shit." I mumbled under my breath. "What are we going to do?"

"Chase them." Fang said.

"No, we can't! They had guns!" Iggy argued.

"Iggy's right, Fang." I agreed. "We can't."

"Well, where would they go? We could follow them." Fang suggested.

"Well, in the papers it said they were taking all experiments to a place called the Institute in Germany. Let's start there." I said.

We took off, holding back tears the whole way.

"Why did you leave without me, anyways?" I asked, purposely trying to break the uncomfortable silence.

"Um…" Fang said. He looked sad. "We forgot about you."

"But I was right next to you're cage the whole time!"

"They were doing tests on us, not you, and Jeb took us during that time."

"Oh." I said. I felt unimportant for a second. "Okay."

We flew and flew, until we hit the ocean edge.


	5. Chapter 5

We didn't talk much. But I could tell everyone was concentrating very hard on trying to find the younger kids. Angel was only 3, Gazzy was 5 and Nudge was 7. I didn't know how they could hold up.

Now, there were two things they could be doing to them:

1. Testing on them like the School did.

2. (No matter how much I hoped they didn't) Kill them like the papers said.

Either way we had to save them.

I started to get sleepy and drowsy. I looked around, but there wasn't any land in sight. Iggy and Fang seemed to share my thought. Both yawned, and I knew we had to find somewhere to sleep.

"Max, how about over here?" Fang said, nodding to a near by boat.

"Okay, sweet." We angled down and landed silently on the deck.

We did find a place to stay. There was a pile of rope and a couple barrels that we slept behind, hoping no one found us. We stacked fists, and went to bed.

Then it was morning. I didn't feel like I had nearly enough sleep, but it was better than nothing. I woke up Iggy and Fang.

We tip toed along the deck, and got ready to jump off the edge. Unfurling our wings, we took off.

"Hey, are those bird kids?" I heard from behind us. Oh crap.

"Wait, they have wings!"

Screams started. Turning around, I saw guards coming out. They had guns.

"Guys, guns!" I yelled. We flew faster away, and shots started to ring in my ears. I had had enough guns for one trip now.

We flew awkwardly in a way to dodge the bullets. One scraped my shoe a little, but it didn't hurt me.

Then we were too far for them to get a good shot. I sighed in relief, and we kept going.

BEEP BEEP.

"Crap! Fang deactivate it!" I yelled, knowing immediately what it was. I went back into my killing mode.

I looked at Fang, filling my eyes with hate on purpose. I flew to him and kicked him a couple times, then swung a punch at him. He dropped a couple feet, but revived from it quickly.

Fang managed to get my shoe off, but nothing more. He kept going for my ankle, but I kept kicking him out of the way.

SLAM!

I gave one last, hard kick. He dropped. His wings folded in, and he was falling towards the ocean like a rock.

"Fang!" I called, snapping out of the killing mode.

Iggy POV

I felt Fang fall from the air. I didn't need to see.

I dived down for him, listening for his heartbeat and feeling where the air moved. Eventually, I was next to him. I caught him.

His heartbeat slowed and his breath was uneven.

"Fang!" I yelled. I checked his pulse and did everything I could to keep him alive.

Then his heartbeat was silent.

No pulse.

Fang was dead.

DON'T WORRY PEOPLE THIS IS NOT THE END OF FANG!


	6. Chapter 6

Max POV

I looked at Iggy. He was holding Fang's lifeless body.

"Fang!" I yelled, and I burst out into tears. "Fang, no!"

I went down as quick as I could. Iggy looked stunned. He had one single tear falling down his cheek. I took the body from him, and looked at him.

When I looked in his eyes, I had to turn away. They were the same dark eyes, but no life. There were really no words to describe how sad I was.

Fang POV

What?

Was I dead?

Maybe, because I couldn't move.

But if I'm dead, I wouldn't be seeing Max right above me, would I?

I felt Max's arms underneath me. She was holding me, and she was crying.

"Fang? No, Fang, don't die!" She was repeating this many, many times. I wanted to scream "I'm alive! Don't worry!" because I couldn't stand to see her this way.

"Max…" I choked out.

"Fang! You- you're alive!"

Max POV

One sliver of hope came into me.

"Fang, are you alive?" I asked staring at him intensely.

"Max…" He said again. Life came into his eyes. I smiled.

"Fang!" I hugged him He unfurled his wings and started beating them, showing he was at full health again. Okay, maybe not full, but close to. "You scared me!"

He smiled. "I'm okay, Max. You don't need to freak out!"

"But it looked like you were dead."

"Yeah," Iggy started, "and you didn't have any pulse. And you weren't breathing. What happened to you?"

Fang was silent for a second. "I don't know. Seizure?"

"You would of still been breathing, Fang." I pointed out.

"Huh…" He said. "I really don't know."

"Okay, anyways." I said. "Let's go get the younger kids."

We snapped out of the confusion and continued along the path to Institute in Germany.

***

Eventually, we got there. We ran to the nearest library.

"Okay, go to Google and search for Institute." I said, and Fang did what I said.

Fang switched the language on it and searched for it. "How about this one?" He asked, pointing to one of the things that popped up.

"Yeah." It opened up, and it was a map. "Print it out."

We got the paper, and tried to find our way to it. I was hoping _so_ much we weren't to late for Nudge, Gazzy and Angel. That damn Itex better not have done anything to them.

"Look!" Fang said. I turned, and I saw it. It was like an old castle, just surrounded by wire fence. Kinda' creepy, actually. It was about a mile away.

We took off, ready for whatever evil plan they had.

When we got there, there were different mutants walking in a large cement covered yard.

"How do we get in?" Iggy asked.

"Up and over, about ten feet," I explained, "Then land next to me."

I took his hand, and we silently flew over the fence hoping we didn't get caught. We landed next to a couple mutants, trying to act natural.

"Were in," I said, "Let's go get them."


	7. Chapter 7

We were in. We followed what the other mutants did, and eventually they all went back inside led by guards. They led us to a room with isles of cages. They all crawled in to different cages, with a tag on their arm that matched a small sign on the top of the cage.

"God, this is horrible." I murmured. Fang nodded in agreement, and we kept walking.

"Max!" I heard someone say excitedly. I turned and saw Nudge.

"Nudge!" I unlatched her cage, Angel's and Gazzy's. Luckily they were all next to each other. "You're here!"

I grabbed Angel and Gazzy stumbled out. They both had tear streaked faces, and it gave me even more reason to kill these jerks that ran this place.

"Max, I was looking around and I found someone. Subject 45, from the letters. I talked to her a bit, but the guards found me and took me back here." She said quickly. "Can we go get her?"

"Yeah." I said. "Wait, I thought that she escaped."

"Nah, she turns invisible. They didn't know that she had that power, so they assumed she escaped.

"Oh, okay. Can you lead the way?"

She nodded yes, spun on her heels, and started walking off.

I stared in pity at the mutants. Some had fur and one even had see through skin so you could see their organs. It was highly disturbing.

It was unbearable to see them in cages, so I unlocked a couple of the ones that looked younger.

"Get everyone out of here," I whispered to a boy with cat ears, "and raise hell on all of the guards."

He smiled, and started unlocking as many cages as he could.

"Hey!" I heard someone say. It was a guard. He ran to me, but I took him but in one hit. No one else came.

We walked down a couple of plain white hallways and passed rooms with labs in them. I felt like going in there and taking out a couple Whitecoats, but right now we had something else to do. We would get subject 45 and then kill them.

"Right here." Nudge said. We walked through double doors that covered in WARNNG DANGEROUS signs, and we were in subject 45's room. It was metal plated everywhere, with a small cage in the center. It was empty.

"Come out! It's me, Nudge!"

But then a girl about my age, maybe a little younger, appeared into it. Her arms wrapped around her knees and her black hair made a curtain around her face.

I tried to unlatch the door to it.

"It's locked." I said.

Nudge held up some keys. "These people should hire better guards."

I smiled and unlocked the cage. She crawled out.

"What's your name?" I asked.

"Karen."

"Hi, I'm Max. This is Fang, Iggy, Nudge, Gazzy and Angel. I will tell more later, but right now we are getting out of here!"

We ran out the doors. Alarms started sounding.

"Warning. Mutant escape." Someone said over the intercom. I smiled, and looked in the room where the mutants were. They were charging out, screaming and yelling angrily.

Doors started opening, and they ran for us. Too bad they gave us abnormal speed, or they could of got us.

We burst through the doors.

"Man, I should of tried this years ago." Karen said.

We took off, and let the rest of the mutants destroy the place. I carried Karen after passing Angel to Fang. (A/N: By the way, Angel is only three and she can't fly that well.)

"So, Karen, why did you get a whole room to yourself?"

"Because of my power."

"What is your power?" I asked.

"Well, I turn invisible."

"But why are you considered dangerous?"

"Oh. I can destroy the world if I want to."


	8. Chapter 8

My jaw dropped, but I closed it.

"What?"

"If I want to, I can destroy the world."

I just stared ahead at the horizon. This girl could cause some huge trouble. And when I say huge, I mean really huge.

"So, you are probably the most dangerous person ever?" Fang asked.

"Yeah, probably." She seemed a little proud of her ability; like that the fact that you can kill everyone alive is a cool thing. Iggy snickered when Karen said that. He seemed happy, also.

"So, we better keep you happy." I said jokingly, even though it was true. She nodded with a smile, and we continued on back to the USA.

***

The way back was harder. I carried Karen, Iggy carried Gazzy and Fang carried Angel. Lucky Nudge was empty-handed and had more energy.

Once again, we found a cruise ship or whatever it was and slept on it. This time no guns shooting and no "Oh my god, those are bird kids."

We glided over the water when the land started to appear in the horizon. I sighed in relief, because I felt like I was going to drop Karen at any second. Who knew what she would do.

We landed on a beach. It was cold out and the wind bit fiercely at my cheeks.

"Okay Max, what are we going to do next?" Fang asked.

Actually, I had no idea. "Uh… Let's go through some of those papers, see what else we have to do." I said, saying the first thing that came to mind.

"Okay." Fang took out the binder from his backpack. He handed it to me, and everyone watched intently.

I took out a pile of papers. It was profile on Jeb!

"Let's look at this." I said, and let everyone look at it.

NAME: Jeb Batchelder

AGE: 45 (A/N: First age that came to mind!)

RANK: 11

CURRENT MISSION: Set all mutants free and send them to base twenty to trick them that he is not a true Whitecoat. Then let them be programmed back to obedience.

"What?" Iggy asked.

"It says that Jeb is supposed to trick mutants into obeying the School instead of fighting back." Fang replied.

"Uh… Okay?" He said, sounding a bit confused.

"So, I guess we have a new mission." I said. "Collect all the other mutants."


	9. Ending Note: MUST READ, OR ELSE!

**A/N: Hey people! The story line is going to take a different turn than I intended, so I would have to change the summary. But I can't write the new message without the old one still being posted, so… What I'm trying to get to is that I am ending this story and starting its sequel. Sorry if you don't like my idea, but that's how I am doing it! The next one is going to be called ****Itex's Secret: Alliance Of The Mutants****. Thanks, and enjoy my new one! (Once it comes out!)**


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